#most of my drawings look good for a week and then. yikes. take that thang away

[arttsuka]

I saw the post no fanart but can I ask a question? What is your favorite fanart piece you have already drawn for someone that you look at and think, damn! I did good on that? Please?

Piece that I've drawn for someone? (Gonna exclude myself because technically all my pieces are for someone)

I really like these two

Actually let me link them. Here and here

[rhettsooo]

Monday, January 16th, 2017 to Tuesday, January 17th, 2017 - Yogyakarta - 5 days until departure The first day of my 5 day itinerary begins and includes: Water Palace Kraton Museum Sambisari Temple Prambanan Temple And then nap before 1am hike up Mt. Merapi for sunrise.. YIKES 9am came early and I met my driver, Richard, who just graduated with a degree in English. He's been driving to pay for school and practice at the same time. He's cool and a super awesome driver. It was an easy going drive, especially compared to Bali where it was congested. We drove down the road where I purchased my far from, but no one was around; it was completely dead. I was taken aback by the night/day change from a trendy hotspot to a couple cars and pedestrians. We arrived at The Palace of Yogyakarta aka Keraton Museum where I was provided a guide as part of my entrance and was introduced to the Sultan's courtyards and monuments and artifacts. The coolest part was the dressing gowns: the traditional clothing had patterns with too much meaning and symbolism than I can remember. Everything from phoenixes to shrimps to big ears. Well, technically the big ears were a headdress. Also, their culture as a rights of passage where a newborn is put in a cage with the nanny and 6 toys. Each toy would symbolize something like engineer, scientist, artist, etc, and if the baby picked, say, the artists one, he/she would grow up to become an artist. Fecking odd to put a kid in a cage...with the nanny... The tour coincidently ended at the start of some music. It was Gamelan, traditional music of the indigenous Indonesians. Much of their instruments were variations of drums, xylophones, gongs, flutes, etc., and did not follow much of a rhythm. It was disjointed and random; the beats were not evenly spaced and felt random most of the time, but sometimes there would by consistency. I had seen something similar in Ubud, but not to this scale and location. There were maybe 24 band members between the ages of 50 and 100— haha. In Ubud there were maybe 15 members and ages 13-18 at a church that I walked by. After the museum tour at the Palace, we drove 5min to the Water Palace aka Plataran Tamansari where the King would bath and pray meditate. It was different from all Indonesian water palaces I had seen because this wasn't available to the public. As the city grew, the borders of the water palace shrank and what was once including an underground temple - officially, back in the day -, now required you to exit the water pool slash bathing area and follow a path to the temple entrance for stair to go down maybe 50 metres... What makes the temple a 'temple' is that there's meditation/praying areas underground. The areas combine in the middle to create one giant centre which has a high ceiling almost reaching the ground. I could see a little bit of sunlight at the top, so there must have been special open framing... Overall a cool temple pool thang— the architecture over all was the most appealing part, I'd say. From there our itinerary placed us at Sambisari Temple which was the most uninspiring temple I've seen. Ever. It was a park basically with a mediocre temple with alright architecture in the centre, but what it especially unique was that the temple was below ground level. Not entirely below ground level like the water temple, but the park had hills going towards each other with the temple in the centre, below ground. I walked around it, through it, and on it in like 30min— time to leave to the main event: Prambanan Temple. Another short drive got us to Prambanan Temple which is known as "the most beautiful temple". and boy did it live up to expectations. What was left of it was maybe 6 or 7 huge temples, the rest of the 75% was destroyed about 100 years ago, so I experienced the remains and renovations post-destruction. I was lucky enough to cross paths with a group of girls training to be tour guides. They came up to me and asked if they could take me a round, which I happily obliged. I learned a lot of cool things.. which I immediately forgot. Each temple had maybe 50 steps to the entrance of a room and in the rooms were statues slash monuments of gods. I wouldn't be able to comprehend what all this USED to look like! It was really big, more like a complex than a single thing. It was super vast. And with all the rubble outlying what is was; WOW. After good byes to my tour guides, we stopped for lunch after where I had grilled duck with a view of rice fields, and I got dropped back at the homestay for a nap to draw an END TO PART 1 OF THE DAY. And when I say part 1, I mean theres more to come: Mt. Merapi. A little later on at 11pm, I get picked up again for a trek up Mt. Merapi for the sunrise. I was not only lucky enough to sneak a few zzz's in, but also a coffee :) At base camp, also known as New Selo, was where we started from at 1am first up road, then pit stop for the group after 30min, then off road and going into the trail for about 60min and then a break, and then another 30 to get to the first post, then the second post was another 30min—you get the picture (I have a picture). This group wanted a lot of breaks. I was one of 5 and 2 guides. Everyone was between my age and maybe 35...and the other 4 were not prepared for what we were doing. It was cold and windy and rocky, and the others we're prepared (ie, wore shorts, didn't wear layers) and I was having a blast... I was fully bundled with toque, gloves, layers with waterproof shell, pants and boots. The climb was a lot of fun. We were literally in the jungle, climbing a mountain that was apart of a mini mountain range, so as dawn approached I could look behind me and see the city and the mountains coming out of the dark and clouds racing past. By around 530am we got to the 3rd post (out of 4) and the group wanted to stay; they were tired and over it. Meanwhile, although you could technically enjoy the sunset from here, I ventured higher with one of the guides to the peak which took us through some lava rock. The greenery has been left behind. Now the peak is parrellel to the crater of the volcano. What I mean by this is as we climb to the peak, on our left, we're looking as rivets in the mountain from the last valcano eruption 10 years ago and to the top of that was the crater with smoke clouds all around it. It was too overcast and windy and cold and unpredictable to go over to the crater. But when the clouds would clear from the peak - at times - I could see across to the crater and the crazy lava trails in the rock going down into the city. At the top I watched the sunrise behind the clouds and then it cleared. I took a selfie-video at the top and all you could hear is wind. As cold as it was, it was an invigorating view and worthwhile to climb lava rock. Going down was the best part because I was facing the city, other mountains, and the sun. Not unlike the way up, most of the time was spent waiting— I wished I could have just dogged down. Nonetheless, I was having a blast. We got back to New Selo (base camp) at around 8am where we left at about 930 after a small breakfast. I fell right asleep on the drive back, along with everyone else. By ~noon I got back to my homestay for a nap with nothing to do after a jam packed day, so I rested up, grabbed food, relax, etc. It was an awesome introduction to the city, the history, and the surrounding region. The realization this was only day two of my time in Yogyakarta just boosted my excitement for the rest of the week.